Peru’s tight presidential race on Friday took a surprise turn when prosecutors confirmed they have opened a preliminary investigation against front-runner Keiko Fujimori and her husband for money laundering.
The preliminary probe was opened quietly in March, but only became known on Friday in a report by Lima-based newspaper El Comercio. It was later confirmed by Peru’s chief prosecutor, who said the investigation is ongoing.
Specifically, authorities are looking into a series of suspicious financial transactions and land deals worth nearly US$1 million. Among them are campaign contributions allegedly collected at two Fujimori-hosted cocktail parties for donors and wire transfers to her campaign from a Delaware-registered company called LVF Liberty Institute.
The investigation, launched in response to a lawyer’s denunciation based on media reports, is bound to stir fears that a Fujimori victory would revive the widespread corruption that marked the presidency of her father, Alberto Fujimori, in the 1990s.
The elder Fujimori is currently serving out a 25-year jail sentence for corruption and sanctioning death squads.
The probe, initially opened for 60 days, is being led by the same prosecutor looking into money laundering accusations against Keiko Fujimori’s political enemy, Peruvian first lady Nadine Heredia.
Keiko Fujimori on Friday accused Heredia of being behind the probe, which she said was aimed at boosting her opponent, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, just two weeks before Peruvians go to the polls in what is shaping up to be a close race. Polls show the two right-wing candidates in a statistical tie with a slight edge for Keiko Fujimori.
Keiko Fujimori called the accusations baseless and said she was confident her name would be cleared, because all campaign contributions had been duly reported to electoral authorities.
“I ask Peruvians not to let themselves be deceived,” she said in a news conference.
News of the probe comes just two days after a congressman close to Fujimori, Joaquin Ramirez, resigned from his post as secretary-general of her Popular Force party over an unrelated money laundering investigation.
In a report last week by US-based network Univision, a former associate and alleged US Drug Enforcement Administration informant accused him of bragging on tape about laundering US$15 million on behalf of Keiko Fujimori’s campaign.
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